Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death for Americans today. Approximately twenty percent (20%) of all American deaths are due to CAD. It is estimated that sixteen (16) million Americans per year are treated for CAD, and one million of these will suffer a heart attack.
Risk factor modification (RFM) and preventive medicine are becoming a major trend as it relates to modifying an individual's risk of developing a disease. For example, RFM for CAD encompasses many aspects of daily life such as smoking cessation, obesity reduction, exercise, lipid management, dietary modification and supplementation, and taking an aspirin a day. Individuals have recognized the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Indeed, physicians are under increasing pressure from the government, medical specialty organizations, managed care and patients to practice preventive medicine. Moreover, managed care and insurance companies have recognized that RFM is a very cost effective strategy. Unfortunately studies show that little progress has been made in the area of RFM and preventive medicine--especially with regard to cardiovascular health.
Practice guidelines have been developed and/or published by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research (AHCPR), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. These guidelines provide algorithms for risk assessment and modification. The practice guidelines, however, are cumbersome, difficult to use, and not readily accessible to or understood by patients. Thus, there is a need to bring RFM to the forefront and simplify the information provided in the practice guidelines.
The Internet and world wide web (WWW) have become major factors in providing healthcare information and resources. Web sites such as, WebMD.com, Medscape.com, Dr.Koop.com, Realage.com and cardassoc.com, provide both physicians and users with valuable healthcare information. These web sites can be categorized into one of four types:
1. Informational, PA1 2. E-mail, PA1 3. Questionnaire, and PA1 4. Combinational.
Informational type web sites typically provide encyclopedia-like healthcare information. Informational web sites, however, are generally difficult to navigate because they provide an individual with huge amounts of information, which must be sifted through. E-mail type web sites allow a user to type in questions that are answered by physicians at a host site. The users, however, are only provided with cursory answers to their questions. Questionnaire type web sites typically ask the user a series of questions to assess the user's health. None of these web sites provide the user with contemporaneous feedback regarding risk factors for a particular disease based on the information that is provided by the user. Finally, none of these web sites track the user's progress as his or her health status improves or deteriorates. Thus, it would be useful to provide an interactive web site that allows a user to provide detailed information regarding a disease, determines an individual's risk of developing the disease, determines the risks associated with the disease if the individual already has the disease, provides ways in which the individual can decrease his or her risk of developing the disease, and tracks the individual's progress with respect to modification of his or her risk factors.